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transient-winds · 16 days ago

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HI YES HELLO I’M ALIVE and the yapping is back (it never left)!!

Just when the summer bbq is concluding. 🥹

Uhh looking back at this post, it’s highkey a sako character analysis post in disguise. Spoilers Ahead for Wind Breaker Chapters 160 & 161! (as promised with doodles)

This last panel with everyone toasting to each other feels like the end to the Summer BBQ event, at least to me. *shakes and wails off into the corner*

So many friendships being strengthened, healing/healed and being made in this one event is making my heart do somersaults. GAHHH!! I would’ve loved if we stayed in this wholesome moment a little longer if it is the last but oh well at least these recent two chapters have given me two things to brainrot about for a while. 🤧

Sako Kota and his relationships

Hooray!! We finally get to see the (much needed) closure of HiraSako’s *gestures wildly* everything, in that moment my spirit synced up with Inugami.

I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to point out Sako had an unhealthy dependency towards Hiragi from when they were kids up ‘til the Shishitoren arc. On the surface level, Sako’s reasons for getting back at him may seem very immature and they are but I also see where it stemmed from. Hiragi was essentially the first to take a chance on him when he was at his lowest and gave him a chance to better himself. Hiragi to him was the pinnacle of strength and security, his guiding light (Chapter 15). He likely thought that even when things change, he would always be by his side because with him, he’s safe—with him, he’s strong. Stronger than he was before, someone who wouldn’t let bullies trample over him.

So when the latter told him he was following Ume and that he should follow his own path, which is normally very inspiring, Sako took it as abandonment. In his eyes, his pillar of strength was no longer holding up the weight of his (Hiragi’s) own roof but rather someone else’s (Umemiya’s’) and he was left in the ruins (dramatic ass analogy I know but it works).

“If Hiragi had been the source of his strength, then if he beats Hiragi that means he’s reclaiming that strength as his own right?” was what probably went through his head when he started picking fights and joined Shishitoren.

His reliance on Hiragi was still there but now it was twisted and he likely started hating himself for having been content with remaining a follower. If you asked my personal thoughts about this, I would say it was unfair. Not just for Hiragi bearing the weight of his unreasonable expectations, but also for Sako himself whose helplessness as a child manifested into the ugly beast that is emotional dependency.

Deep down, he was still the same hurt child who couldn’t fight back against his bullies and needed someone to support him. When that support came and fell through, he thought defeating Hiragi was his way of proving to himself that he can stand on his own without relying on others. The point when things finally climaxed (aka the Hiragi vs Sako fight) was the moment when Sako had begun letting go of his heart demons. Turns out he just needed to have a talk or two with Hiragi. Communication and respect are the keys to any healthy relationship after all, even if said communication is thru fists but they are delinquents so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

With that tangent on Sako’s previous ideologies out of the way, another thing I noticed in his official apology was that he called Inugami “kohai” and also like other things he said, but mainly that part. Maybe I’m reading into it or im late to the party, but me thinks he was somewhat of recluse in Shishitoren. Like sure, he wouldn’t be outright hostile but he wouldn’t be actively making friends either.

When Inugami first appeared and was very comfortable talking to him, it made me think “ah this is Sako’s new bestie when he came to Shishitoren, it’s good someone was there for him while he was gunning for Hiragi”. But with this new context, in my head it makes sense if he only joined because he wanted revenge so he likely wouldn’t have reached out if he was so fixated on his goals. And with the whole uh pre-Shishitoren arc Choji and Togame thing going around, yeah I wouldn’t also be eager to make be friendly with them too. But somewhere along the way he got attached to them, he just didn’t realized it at the time.

After Bofurin bulldozes in with their life changing fists and kicks, Sako leaving wouldn’t have been a hard decision for him to make since (1) he’s got presumably no friends and (2) he wants to wallow in self pity alone for a good long while. Then comes crashing in sweet boy Inugami and honestly? I don’t blame Sako for spilling his entire backstory on the guy. I mean look at his face!!

He’s Sako’s emotional support dog.

Anyways, in my heart I’d like to believe Inugami was the second person to reach out to him. Offering him another chance to lean on support and start anew on learning to be okay with accepting a hand or two but not to the extreme. Trusting others and letting people in again, but also learning to trust in himself too.

And so far, things are going pretty well for him. Found family within Shishitoren, got someone who’s unafraid to keep him in check and repaired his relationship with Hiragi & his other childhood friends! Throwing all the confetti and sweets for him <3

HOO-WEE THAT WAS SO FUCKING LONG 😭😭

I wanted to add more to this latter half of this discussion but the Sako-brainrot took over, so i’ll just briefly cover my thoughts on Sakura’s progress.

Two words: SAKURA’S GROWTH!

HE IS BLOOMING IN THE SUMMER HEAT OF JULY, HE’S RADIANT AND HIS SKINS GLOWING AS HE SMILES, IM SMOTHERING HIM IN A PILE OF FLOWER BOUQUETS -*ahem*

Sakura really has come a really long way from the person he was 4 months ago and it’s a real tear-jerker. Even if he didn’t say it to their faces directly, he called his class his friends and he hangs out with the others (their allies) on his own whenever he has the time. Sakura’s getting comfortable with all of them and I cannot believe that after 160+ chapters this is the first canonical mention of the “stray cat” analogy. His first year and he already won the hearts of so many people, deserved really 🙌.

Honorable mentions:

The Kanuma and Suo reunion I’ve been waiting for 👏👏. But it’s not enough,, so I’m gonna post a doodle of their mini interaction to satisfy my craving for enemies to friends and/or lovers suonuma 🏃🏃

!!Togame and Choji apologizing to Kaji!! I almost forgot Choji completely trashed him and other Furin students on his way to the school.

This panel is my everything, it’s so sweet like y’ALL I’M HERE THINKING ABOUT WHO KNOWS HOW LONG YANAGIDA AND MATSUMOTO HAVEN’T SEEN AND TALKED TO THEIR CUTE KOHAI WHO FOLLOWED HIRAGI AROUND LIKE A DUCKLING. IM UGGHHH- *stumbles to the ground and wails pathetically*

Sugi? Sweet boy, what are you contemplating about 👀? If you asked me, I hope it’s about Sakura AND/OR will be relevant to the next arc of the series because my body is simultaneously ready and not ready for new antagonists.

—

Once again singing my praises to Nii-sensei, their team and the official english translation staff. My head is constantly in a spin for these characters and their interactions with one another. And thank y’all for being patient with me for this post and for reading til the end.

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lilacxquartz · 2 months ago

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uncanny valley;

summary: being a travelling merchant, you often sold all sorts of oddities to willing collectors, however, something was surely off about this client in particular.

a/n: for that one ask that requested something darker & lore accurate. reader insert but mostly to explore their character, this is not x reader. • masterlist, ao3

themes: lore accurate kenjaku, torture using gravity CT, disturbing themes, violence, hurt/no comfort, unending yapping, gender neutral reader • w.c: ~3k

Travelling across the world to both curate and sell strange artefacts had become something akin to second nature for you. At often times, these things were tied to jujutsu—so you’d part with varying sorts of cursed objects, scrolls and trinkets that felt as though they were imbued with an unseen energy.

At least to you, given that you were not a sorcerer.

Collectors were usually a mixed bag of people; sometimes it would be private hobbyists or institutions seeking to expand their wealth of knowledge available—but nothing could have prepared you for an interaction with one collector in particular—oh no, no, no, they were different.

You would often zone out as they spoke too, simply because it was partially nonsensical but also because it would be long and unwinding. Such words that were otherwise spoken with velvety smoothness only to offer very little explanation or even comfort beyond their chilling tone left you feeling nothing short of wary.

And yet, it wasn’t as though you had the option to just walk away either with something unseen that willed you into listening—that compelled you into staying against your own innate fear. It was as though when they spoke, your gut instinct anchored like an unseen weight, binding you to the ground.

“You know, you claim you still can’t see them,” the man spoke, their words oozing from their lips like molten honey; slick like velvet yet stagnating with unsettling stiffness.

You cleared your throat. “Pardon?”

“The entities that are invisible to the naked eye for the majority of humanity,” they clarified, but only just. “You claim to only be slightly put off the trinkets you curate and sell, likely due to the unseen cursed energy, but what if I told you that you could see those things too?”

Once again, you were lost. Something told you that this person must have been a trickster of some sort; a devil disguised as a human being. They were certainly charming enough and the mockery that laced every word that rolled off of their tongue was surely telling too. For that reason, your gut instinct screamed at you to not trust a single word that this individual spoke.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” you carefully replied as to neither dispel your curiosity nor their claim without giving into it.

The man stayed silent for a moment while allowing a slow, creeping smile to stretch onto their face, creasing the almost perfectly marbled skin they wore. No, this being couldn’t have possibly been alive, at least not in the same way as you. Jujutsu was still a foreign subject on your ears and there was a whole lot that you still didn’t know, but you could at least recognise this entity as being far from human. Perhaps at one point they were, but the way they acted felt almost rehearsed, as if they didn’t quite belong in the body they lived in. There was something rather telling about that deep blank stare and the eyes that looked right back at you; void black dots that were unyielding like space itself—except unlike the vast stretch of eternal darkness adorned by the glitter of stars—there was instead nothing that could be reflected in their gaze.

Just pitch black vastness.

Humans—regular humans, non-sorcerers—did have a term for something like this; a feeling that someone or something was out of place. What was the name for it again? The unease that you felt when looking back at this entity was not unjustified nor was it a reach, but rather perfectly well appointed. You were feeling that currently, you were pretty sure, because you weren’t being looked at by this thing—you were being analysed—maybe even dissected.

“Technically speaking,” the man continued, leaning in ever so slightly so that their long black hair swayed forward, “all of humanity, sorcerers or not, regardless of origin, are able to see these manifestations that the Jujutsu community is gate keeping the existence of,” they added, snapping their fingers to hold your attention. “Ever had a nightmare that left you feeling off in the waking world? Or have you ever felt… watched in your bedroom late at night? Perhaps it’s something that you have convinced yourself over the last couple of years in your time as an adult that being afraid of the dark is childish, so you pretend that the threat isn’t real nor there. But why is it otherwise that humans had long feared the dark and all of those things that go bump in the night?”

“Well you can’t see in the dark,” you muttered out, trying to follow their line of thinking, “so it’s a fear of the unknown, isn’t it?”

They hummed, seemingly satisfied with the direction of where your train of thought was headed. “Correct. Now, it’s mostly children who have these retained fears. A fun little fact is that children under the age of ten, gifted or not, have been speculated to be ten times more likely to see cursed spirits than in adulthood, so let me ask you this: why is it that children are more likely to see them than their adult counterparts?”

You shrugged that time. “A more active imagination?”

They half scoffed, shaking their head. What a boring answer you just gave, they thought. You were being purposefully vague and withholding the true extent of your answers just because you didn’t want to entertain them due to a lack of trust. While this might have all been fair enough, it was surely concerning to them that this was the norm; people simply didn’t thirst for knowledge nor practical answers anymore. How bleak your life must truly be for you to purposefully shelter yourself from their fleeting tidbits of acquired wisdom that made life better worthy of living and dare they even say, exciting.

Was your sense of self preservation truly that important?

Was your life truly that worth living if that was all you had to say for yourself?

They sighed, wanting to lead the lesson in a particular direction instead. Your insolence for ignorance will be punished all in due time, regardless. “Because of a lot of things,” they continued once again, “but for the most part, it’s due to their lacking rationality.”

“Yeah?” you replied, feeding right into their trap. “Because they’re naïve?”

The entity nodded as they plucked a trinket from your stall, their voice adopting a more casual tone, “Correct. By having less control in their emotions and less understanding of the world around them, they’re more freely exposed to the chaos otherwise left unchained by the cursed realm. Which leads me to my next big question; where is a place that exists in the adult mind to let go of such sensibility and let our thoughts run free?”

Admittedly, this was fun in a way. You couldn’t help but want to solve the riddle they kept tempting you with. Perhaps you could technically dip into the depths of hell and indulge in something not too terribly condemning, after all, just far enough to get your answer.

“A dream?” you answered, thinking back to the mention of a nightmare from earlier before.

Suddenly the man erupted with almost excited glee, settling the object back into the stall as though reaching some sort of breakthrough with you, “So you were listening!” they genuinely praised, their voice becoming playful. “Very good, very good indeed. Dreams are where our souls roam free, succumbing to the chaos of irrationality and lacking structure alike. When you go to sleep, you’re entering the space between dreams and reality, potentially opening your mind up to the cursed realm and I'll bet you that any sort of oddity that you’ve ever come across while asleep, be it in an oddly realistic dream or nightmare, that you’ve witnessed it first hand yourself.”

“And you’re saying that dreams are a gateway to seeing those creepy things, or…?” you asked, trying to keep up yet again.

“Something of the sort, yes,” the man replied as they widened their creepy smile, “now, think clearly for me, will you?” they requested, snapping their fingers yet again as though to hold your focus lest you drifted away. “As an adult, just as you are now, when is a time that you can catch a glimpse into something unseen that lacks that same sort of rationality? You’re not a kid anymore, so you’re very likely at least a little jaded to the world, either through the hardships of life or due to possible trauma that has sculpted your reality... If one isn’t dreaming, then what option does that leave a non-sorcerer to be able to see cursed spirits?”

In a way however, you hated this guy for churning your mind and making you think such odd things.

…Something that existed between irrationality and the dream world?

Your head went to all sorts of places, but it seemed to all be herded towards one point in particular, leaving you suddenly uneasy with where this was all going as it all finally clicked.

With a lower voice that was just above a whisper, you entertained the question once more but with less confidence this time, “…a hallucination?”

“Very good! How clever you are,” the man replied although their voice seemed to now carry a particular coldness to it. “Let’s consider the fact that in order for a hallucination to bleed into the waking world, there have to be certain conditions applied to their psyche that are strong enough to both bend and warp their reality. This can be accomplished through a sudden trauma response such as psychosis or when facing something extreme. For example, for you, I’m going to give you a demonstration of something far simpler than driving you to insanity just yet, because you see, there’s a point in everyone’s lives that people all get to experience a great emotional stir—a moment that invites vulnerability to awaken, where hope no longer exists—such a slip of weakness right before the embrace of—“

“—death?” you finished up their sentence, interrupting their spiel.

“What a good student you are,” they praised once more, “such an academically gifted mind is surely worthy of a demonstration, don’t you think?”

Your mind blanked upon those words, opening itself up to both doubt and negativity just as they had planned for you to do so. So suddenly were you caught in between all of the readily thrown implications that they had otherwise casually implied.

You didn’t want any hand in any sort of offered demonstrations and yet you already knew that you very likely didn’t have a choice.

Without warning, you felt as though your own two feet fused themselves into the ground yet again but it wasn’t a fear response this time around. It was a slow pull that followed, but you gradually could feel as the air left your lungs by a squeezing unseen force. From a glance up, you could tell that this was their doing and that they were taking their good sweet time in doing so.

“Now, I must warn you…” the man threatened without as much breaking a sweat; their expression unwavering with nonchalance with their tone returning to something jovial, “my demonstration is likely to leave you… breathless, for a lack of better words.”

Unable to protest against the warning, you could only endure as the shifting weight of the air around you locked tight against your chest. The air, thick with something dry yet salivating at the same time scratched at your throat as the simple act of breathing quickly turned into an impossible task. It was as though the oxygen that was otherwise plentiful around you had turned solid and thereby became inaccessible.

Following another attempt, you desperately attempted to inhale only to be met with a pause. The air quite literally refused to enter your respiratory tract and your chest was left unable to expand with a breath no matter how hard you tried.

Panic was secondary upon the realisation that manifested in your system. You tried again and again to gasp, finding that it was all pointless—aimless even, since try as you might—the air remained static and unmoving.

But then a small fleeting sliver of hope slid through your system, whether it was accidental or on purpose, a slight teasing gust of air was granted back into your lungs. Such an act left you with very little comfort however as the world was already blurring all around you; dampening your barely contained light.

All that you could otherwise hear was your heartbeat that hammered loudly in your chest; reverberating like a stray bullet in a metal barrel, darting around in a deafening crescendo. Your chest then tightened once more, forcing your movements to feel sluggish, as though wading through condensed waters.

Yet, surely desperate as you were and refusing to meet your end just yet, you held on out of spite and then finally, you saw it.

Movement that wasn’t from the man alone.

Your vision still blurred, but just out of the corner of your eye, something sinister had since then materialised. Something that scurried off into the clinging shadows of the vicinity in the dead of your blurring eyes. Twisting forms of something grotesque that stared right back at you with skittish eyes.

So these were… cursed spirits?

You understood at long last and so perfectly well too. In a hurry to break away however, you backed up against your flimsy stall, not quite caring about the fragile trinkets that despite looking so dull clattered against the soft ground like clashing steel.

Swallowing hard, you felt your sense of rationality slip away as you caught sight of something malevolent and uninvited but then, as if suddenly, it all stopped. The burning in your lungs had subsided and clarity within your vision had been regained.

Looking up, you could see that their hand was no longer raised, although you were regarded with a curious, unblinking stare.

“W-what was… w-why did you…?” you couldn’t help but blabber as you tried to make sense of everything.

“Why?” they asked in the same tone of voice you cried out in as if to taunt you. “No reason, I just found you both… simultaneously boring yet curious, I suppose. Sorcerers offer their fun at times, but just regular old folk like you are worth the trouble too. It’s fascinating though, don’t you think? You have so little idea of the world around you and even with the amount of knowledge I keep repeatedly providing to you—you still insist on attempting to stay deliberately… ignorant.”

“K-keep on…?” you replied, simply repeating their words at this point. “I keep—what?”

“…Or are you finally getting it?” the man enquired, tilting their head to the side as they looked at you. “You know, I have been… studying you for this whole interaction, even way before you manifested yourself into being a merchant. Interesting choice by the way. I find it especially peculiar how you, someone otherwise unfamiliar with Jujutsu, were able to not trust me or what lies within me. Very observant, indeed. Last time this silly game of ours happened, you were much more lenient with my company, but I suppose you have learned since then.”

You stammered out another response yet again, “Manifested myself…?”

They hummed, seeming almost amused. “That’s right, manifested. But before that, do let me finish, why don’t you? I was going to say that your accusatory self wouldn’t have made it far, had you been a sorcerer with a mind like that. Could you believe it that the modern sorcerers of today aren’t paid to be so questioning and sceptical? They simply exist to do as they’re told and expel the endless negativity that is otherwise forged through the burden of humanity. It’ll never end, mind you, not as long as we as a species continue to exist.”

“So you’re… what? Against humanity or…?” you croaked out.

They shook their head with a refuting motion, “No, I’m for humanity, believe it or not. I want to see it prosper, grow and maybe even evolve. That’s why I have my interest in people like you, because why should the fun be limited towards curse users alone?”

“And you’re…” you tried to piece it all together, but couldn’t quite do it as nothing made sense anymore, “you’re… doing what exactly with me?”

“Or haven’t you realised it yet?” they questioned you, their smile faltering to a disappointed frown. “You have been flicking your eyes around the space from the moment we began the conversation, but you surely must have felt it from the very beginning, no? That this was no ordinary exchange and that your undoing had been predetermined from the start. Nothing is real; everything you see before you is fabricated and carefully orchestrated as a response from your own mind. I’m just playing along with it. You’re being distrusting because you don’t believe the faint glimmer of hope that I’m offering you because we had already been acquainted before. But worry not, the end is much closer than you think.”

You paled. “I’m dying…?”

“Maybe,” they replied almost playfully, not quite offering you a solid answer, “or maybe not. I’d prefer you didn’t let go until I’m done with you, but then again… you’re also no use to me if your brain has turned to mush.”

Not bothering with another reply, you tried to make sense of this whole thing by yourself instead. It was surely jarring as you made the realisation though, the hallucination left your immediate vision and revealed that you were instead in some sort of dingy, dank room instead.

A basement, perhaps?

Your eyes crept down, noticing that you were tied down to some sort of patient chair, like the type you would see at a dentist’s; your ankles and wrists strapped into looping holes that were drilled to the edges. Assorted bloodied instruments lay both on the tiled floor and on metal trays with strewn teeth and pried out fingernails collected in little glass jars.

Come to think of it, your hands felt surely raw and your mouth festered with the taste of trickling copper.

The man before you hovered nearby, holding onto a scalpel in one hand and a marker in the other.

With an almost excited tone, their voice now promised something chilling, “Now let’s see just how far these visions go if you were to be skinned alive.”

Blanking, you panicked and refused.

Which was how you now found yourself plunged somewhere new, playing the role of an adventurer roaming around an unreal world.

(And who truly knew what your next encounter could bring?)

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